Eric Liddell continues to Inspire

03-Feb-2013

Eric Liddell's daughter expresses support for the Diaspora Tapestry

The story of Eric Liddell (1902-45), his extraordinary life and his impact on people's lives, is a well-known one. Especially last year, amongst all the excitement of the Olympics, his famous athletic achievements were recounted for us in documentaries and features which also revealed the remarkable missionary work he undertook in China. Liddell's story was naturally one which we planned to cover in the Scottish Diaspora Tapestry, and as a starting point we were in touch with the Eric Liddell Centre in Edinburgh. Bob Rendall at the centre has been very helpful, and we were delighted to hear that he had passed information about our project to Maureen Moore, Eric Liddell's youngest daughter, who soon contacted us herself.

We were delighted to hear of Maureen's support for our intentions to include her father's work in our Tapestry. She described the idea as "marvellous" and gave us some ideas on how we might represent it. Fascinatingly, Maureen also sent us a document detailing her correspondence with a young American schoolboy who was inspired by Eric Liddell's story after a teacher read a biography to the class. You can read the story here:

We are of course not surprised to discover that Eric Liddell continues to inspire people, and we are delighted to have Maureen's support as we begin to prepare our panels on the Scottish Diaspora's connections in China. You can find our summary of those links on our China page.